


It’s Always You

by jurdanhell



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Buckle up, F/M, Hi i don’t know where this is going, Post QoN, QoN - Freeform, Queen of nothing - Freeform, cause here we go, ive written only one fic like ever and it was bad, tcp, the cruel prince - Freeform, the wicked king, twk, you have just as much an idea as i do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21620782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jurdanhell/pseuds/jurdanhell
Summary: Jude has weights weighing down on her in ways no one could imagine. But how could they, if she never speaks of them?When Jude finally snaps in a moment of seeking refuge from her thoughts, things take a turn in a way she never would have expected.
Relationships: Jude Duarte/Cardan Greenbriar
Comments: 9
Kudos: 166





	It’s Always You

Jude Duarte was many things. Killer to many, friend to few. Queen to all.

And, after everything that she’s been through in the last eight months, Jude should know who she is. She’s the High Queen is Elfhame, of course, but that’s just a title. That’s not who she is. Jude worked to bury her feelings. To lock them up and throw away the key. And now, years later, she’s searching for a key she fears she’ll never find. 

When a knock at the door startled her out of her thoughts, Jude was considering never coming to the door at all, as if she were never there. Before she could, however, it opened. 

Without turning to acknowledge who entered the room, she hastily picked up a book and tore her attention to it. Somehow, she had to force herself to believe that it was more interesting than whoever could’ve entered the room without her permission.

The list was very short, and they were all much more valuable to her than a book, loathe as she may be to admit it.

There was also a list, which may or may not be slightly longer, of people who believe themself eligible to enter without her permission, regardless of the scolding looks Jude sends their way, the threats she barely contains, and the oh-so-telling way she looks at them from across the room.

A pair of hands run up each of her bare forearms, now lacking the fabric that she’d previously torn off hastily. With the memory still fresh in her mind, she is plagued with many thoughts and is lacking the space to organize them. Her head hurts, her feet are sore, and there are at least a dozen members of some court prying for a moment of her attention just outside.

She’d needed a moment to clear her head, to think things through herself without the obstruction of someone else’s thoughts intruding on her own any more than they already had. Goosebumps rise on her arms where the owner’s hands had been, a ghost burning his touch into her skin. 

“Jude, dear,” he starts, completely unsure of where he could take that statement, and utterly unknowing of where he wants it to go. “You left.” He states dumbly.

“I know,” she supplies. A moment of silence passes and for a moment he believes that’s the only answer he will get. “I just needed a minute to catch my breath.”

“Ah,” he returns, not-so unaware of how she now lacks the dress that she wore only minutes ago. About how she must’ve torn it off as some emotion drowned out everything else. Her need to breathe had to have been suffocating. “Might there be something that would aid you?”

Jude doesn’t answer this, but in turn, gives her own, “I’m just tired, Cardan. I’ll be alright.”

“I thought there were to be no more lies?”

_Shit._

Jude freezes, her breath catching in her throat and her words dying on her tongue. She opens her mouth several times to speak, each time getting nowhere further. If anywhere, she felt, backward. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself to be somewhere, anywhere else.

Back to the start. Suddenly she was seven again, red staining her mother’s rug, a scream escaping her throat. Nine, when the red had soaked the ground beneath her, staining it, too, with her now missing fingertip. Again, when she slammed the blade through her hand, and again when the red soaked through her pant leg as the bolt dug itself even deeper. That was all she ever saw anymore: red, red, red.

She opens her eyes again, and she swears she sees red. Blood staining her skin, Valerian’s knife in her hand, the dress she wore at the revel, Balekin’s blood on her sleeve, Cardan’s ring on her finger. Red. Jude can’t breathe.

The air seems heavy and think, and yet it feels impossibly thin in her lungs, always evading her, always just out of grasp. Her breaths become heavy and rushed. Unsteady, and needy. 

There’s an arm around Jude, and it brings her a safety she’s unfamiliar with. She hates it. The owner of the arm pulls her closer, his heat bringing her warmth. His soft tone pulling her back from wherever she was. She loves it. 

Tears prick her eyes as her vision begins to swim. It’s so unlike Jude to cry. She didn’t cry when she broke her arm when she was six, not when she fell off her bike and scraped her knees when she was seven. Not even when they had to clean the cuts, and they stung so bad Jude thought her legs might just fall off. 

She works furiously to blink them away, and just as she thinks she succeeded, Cardan runs a thumb over her cheek, hands pulling away wet with soft tears. He cradles her face in his hands, he holds her in a way that’s so uncharacteristically gentle. She places a hand over his, and life seems to return to her. Almost. 

In one swift motion, she’s in Cardan's arms, leaning her head against his chest. Then, she was on the bed. The world seemed to speed around her, the senses she had blurred together. 

Where Cardan once stood was empty, his spot vacant. In what felt like no time at all, Jude was lying against him, her head on his chest. She listened to his soft heartbeat, she felt his hand on her hair. A soft gesture that she couldn’t be sure she’d feel if she wasn’t so hyper-aware of every little thing.

There’s a brush against her knee, and a tail wrapped around her calf before she can process it. 

“This doesn’t seem real,” she starts, suddenly unsure of the reality of everything around her. 

“You’re telling me,” Cardan starts in response, a slight chuckle finding its way into his voice, though he found nothing about any of it humourous. “What even was that?”

“I—“ How does she reply to this? How could she possibly explain that she’s been plagued with pressing eyes and harsh voices that were never there? How could she even start? Where would she begin? There’s too much, it’s too much. There’s not enough time to finish and where would she be if she couldn’t finish, so what’s the point in starting?

“Jude—Jude,” his hands take hers and he holds her closer. “Just breathe, Jude.” 

Breathe.

Just breathe. What an insane thought.

Again, she listens to the hammer of his heart. The feeling of his soft hands on hers as he runs his finger over the stone of her ring ever so gently. There’s a kiss pressed to her head, firm and solid and warm. Her grip tightens.

“I have this thing,” she starts again. 

“Thing?” Cardan’s brows knit together in confusion; he listens, nonetheless.

“Yeah, I, uhm,” a moment of silence blankets the air, thick and heavy, as she attempts to collect her thoughts. “I have anxiety attacks. Most of them are like this, some of them are worse, and they never subside that quickly.”

“No?”

“No.”

If possible, Cardan pulls her closer. “So what makes this so different?” 

Jude twists in place in order to wrap her arms around him. Then, it’s her who pulls him closer. Jude is silent again, and Cardan isn’t sure if he’ll get an answer. He isn’t sure if he should push for one, either. Fae don’t break like this.

But then, Jude didn’t break. Jude doesn’t break. Not Jude, never Jude.

“You.” She whispers. Cardan almost didn’t hear her, wasn’t sure if she’d really spoken at all, until she continued. “It’s always you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi if you got this far, thanks — because i had absolutely no idea where this was going, whether that was obvious or not. I’d like to thank my ever-growing itch to write *something* for plaguing me with the idea to write a Jurdan fic, so, here we are.


End file.
